Since the discovery of electricity, the world's use of electric devices has increased many times over. Until recently, the demand for electric has been satisfied in large part using electricity generated through the use of oil. But concerns about the limitations of the world's oil supply, as well environmental concerns, have led to a search for alternative sources to generate power.
In that regard, the use of solar power as an energy source has increased, with large solar panels becoming more common fixtures on both homes and businesses. Solar farms having thousands of panels to harness the power of the sun are also not uncommon. The use of solar power has led to the development of both photovoltaic and thermal types of solar panels. Photovoltaic type panels convert the solar energy to electricity, while thermal type panels convert the solar energy to heat. Both have been used as substitutes for oil-generated heat or electric.
Thermal type panels have been used for a variety of different purposes. Larger thermal panels are used in thermal solar power plants, with some of the huge, several-story high, parabolic thermal solar panels being able to generate temperatures up to 3,800 degrees Celsius. Medium sized solar thermal panels have been used to heat water in a home and use large rigid panels on top of the home. Even smaller solar thermal panels, which might be used to heat pools or for space heating, involve the use of large and heavy panels.
Thus, while solar power has been used on a large scale to power homes and businesses, it has not been seen as a viable power source on a small scale, and it has not been seen as a viable portable power source. This is due in large part to the perception of solar panels as large, heavy, and unwieldy devices that are difficult to install and expensive to purchase.
Thus, smaller, lighter, easier to build, and portable thermal solar panels are desired to allow a greater use of thermal solar panels and to facilitate a change in the perception of solar power as only being usable for large scale implementations. The smaller solar panels have many advantages, including the advantage of cost and maintenance effectiveness, scaling efficiency that allows cost to be linear with respect to array size and the ability of increase the size of the array incrementally, portability, the ability to repair or replace segments of large arrays at low cost with little effort.